Grace’s fascination with the quail didn’t fade as time passed. Instead, she seemed even more fascinated. As if the progress into increasingly self-destructive monsters was a personal challenge for her to overcome. With more mana to work with than I could spend, advancing several quail for her to work with wasn’t that hard. One particular quail was advanced to class seven. Now eight pedes tall, the monster could barely move at all. The slightest effort on his part shredded the earth and dropped him on his face.
It took him two days to be able to control his power enough that he could keep up with the army. The three banshees on his back hardly accomplished anything, apart from increasing the force of his collision with the ground when he failed to control his strength properly. An insignificant difference for him, but the banshees had long stopped suppressing him as his own suppression was already a massive weight on their shoulders. One had had her wings ripped off by the abrupt violence of a fall, to say nothing of the danger of a fractured bone every time one of them moved at all.
The question now was how to advance the banshees. Their circuitry was stable and balanced, but no matter how much mana I pumped into them, they didn’t advance to class three. One did explode, but that wasn’t helpful. Eventually I recognized that I’d have to develop body circuitry for the banshees if they were going to survive. Even at class five, the quail were killing their banshee every time they attacked.
I’d gotten used to shifting circuits across races and sexes, so it wasn’t particularly difficult to develop a set for the banshees, but their needs were quite particular. I had to pull from almost every source I had available to me to finish. Their body was too weak, so goliath circuits were the best I knew of. Their screech and air circuits were unique, so horse circuits were necessary to unify the system into a single array. Their abilities with circuitry were pathetic, so hellhound circuits were necessary to increase their sensitivity for specific types of circuits and runes. The list of what I had to convert into banshee was extensive. And then there was the advancement of their core circuits. Luckily, I was curious and so were several of my forces. The development of advanced versions of their circuits was already well underway.
It definitely didn’t help that advancing their screech to the fourth class brought the sound into some rule that caused the air to suppress sound and required incorporating their wings and screech together for them to be able to sense the world properly. My understanding peaked at making the banshees class six. The two that I’d advanced were identical to the others, apart from their circuitry. Apparently, whatever decided what a banshee ought to look like was done at class two. That suited me just fine. If they kept growing there was a risk that my concrete circuits would start to malfunction in the larger bodies. Or the effects would be lessened. I didn’t want to have to start over again.
Unfortunately, the increased power of the rejection of the air put them in the range of my avatars. Black dust clouds blocked the quails’ vision if they stood still for longer than a second. And the class seven quail was still shredding the earth instead of going faster. He was just shredding a longer stretch of earth instead of immediately hitting the ground.
The source of the solution was entirely unexpected; Glrt. I hadn’t thought her density of intent would be such a boon, but Glrt was looking to catch up to Angie with how fast she was learning. Her approach led to a greater level of specialization than Angie had, but her rate of improvement was a marvel all the same. She only learned earth-manipulation runes, but she was using true circuits in only a couple of months. Given her lackluster start, it was miraculous. I’d been surprised at her choice of specialization until she made her first permanent true circuit. It was an earth-based brood toy. Apart from the solidity and violence of how it moved, I wasn’t sure what was superior in her version as compared to my brood toys, but she looked with extreme disdain on any female goblins that had brood toys. She seemed less dismissive of the humans, for some reason.
It was so odd that I actually delved into her will-core to learn the answer directly. Apparently, she disliked both the squishy feel of brood toys as well as hating the fact that they were used as a constant aid, making the users borderline useless all day, as opposed to her own method that allowed her to function to a much greater degree despite her will-core actually being tainted by such extreme lust that even those fully devoted to the brood construct couldn’t fully relate. As for her disdain for goblins specifically, she thought they were too soft. Pampered, was her word. As exemplified by their choice of sexual partner.
As I explored the wider consensus, curious about this question in particular, I realized that her opinion was far from unique. Many goblins that had survived in the wild shared her opinion, they just sought to hide or deny it more than she did. Their contempt was hidden behind layers of assumptions about my purpose for creating soft goblins and other complexities that interfaced with parts of themselves that were orbiting my will-core. Glrt was a commander, so she knew more that the softness of her goblin subordinates was more a reflection of her own leadership, or rather Grace’s leadership while she was indisposed, than a reflection of my will.
Whatever her incentive, the results were unquestionable. She developed her own earth spike true circuit, a devastating weapon that could be used as a singular spike that was lethal even to the class four ogres or a field of spikes that impaled entire contingents of lesser foes. In order to make the spike dangerous for monsters with reinforced flesh, she was forced to develop a means to make the earth harder than it was. She succeeded. She had managed to develop a circuit to reinforce the earth.
With that circuit, the earth was as hard as the power of the circuit could make it. The initial version may not have been able to present any resistance to quail talons, but once she’d had the idea it was easy for me to reinforce the spell to class six. That version was hard enough to allow the quail to dig into the earth with the entirety of their strength and reach speeds so intense that they outstripped the air’s ability to suppress them at class six. The banshees were still useful at this phase as their circuit could decrease the resistance as well. It turned out that decreasing the resistance also allow the air to slide past the quail, where it was getting stuck in front of the quail and turning them into land-locked stars before the banshees realized the continued benefits of mutualism. A short stint as a star made the quail’s impact a burning star, but over time the quantity of air stuck in front of them grew to the point that they couldn’t push it faster than the air could suppress them. The heat also softened the earth again, reducing the effect of the earth hardening circuit.
Even with the resistance reduction, it wasn’t a perfect solution; the quail were horrible at circuitry and required their banshee companion to learn the circuit instead. It also hadn’t been utilized effectively without my direct interference, no banshees were up to the standard to make such an advanced circuit, but Glrt’s circuit had helped to solve a problem that stymied both me and Grace. At least, she’d helped make a problem that continued to become more problematic as the class of the quail increased more manageable. The quail circuits were still capable of growth at class seven, so it was entirely possible that no circuit reinforcing the earth would be able to give the class eight quail a foothold. Research had to be paused, however, as I didn’t want to commit all of my banshees into a course of action that may turn out to be ineffective. Once their pairing could actually function on their own, we’d start up again.
Glrt’s value as a research assistant was never her forte, however. More impressive than anything she provided for the quail was an idea that was being developed in her mind. A class six true circuit she dubbed Gravequake. She was already knocking on the door of the most advanced attack circuitry I was capable of inventing without adaptation of previous ideas. A very narrow range, in comparison to my overall combat effectiveness…but still a development that was worthy of all the praise I could shower her with. Her lacking mana also made any assault at that level the entirety of her effectiveness, whereas I could continue throwing out class seven attack circuits in near perpetuity.
Her improvement was showcased when the force met a wall of leather and bone. We’d finally found a non-Conclave cannibal city. Compared to the stone walls of a Conclave city, the woven leather was barely an inconvenience for the army. The population of the city may be over ten times that of the army at nearly two hundred million, but the quality was much lower. It could have been a very short battle, an easy place to conquer, but Glrt decided that this was a perfect opportunity to showcase her new circuit. The force stopped beyond the range of any in the city, watching as Glrt stood like a statue. A statue that would occasionally explode with wires of broken circuitry gouging lines in the earth and whatever else was in the way. Oftentimes including her own flesh in the casualties.
Unlike my circuitry, Glrt formed her true circuits with herself as the center, the core rune being drawn directly within her crystallized brain. Every failure was an agonizing death without my protection as the various forces that held the circuit in balance breaking down was not a calm process, especially at class six, but she used the pain as a force to reinforce her intent. Every failure made her more determined to succeed. The destruction of her body was merely a reflection of how she was above her body. She was mine, and what was mine could never die.
The city’s response to a foreign army camping right outside was very predictable. The alarm was blaring for the first two days, every soldier on the walls tense and ready to start combat. In awe and terrified by the massive creatures in the army, but ready to die defending their city. Afterwards, their tension drained. Every couple of hours one person or another would stand atop the wall and demand to know the purpose of our visit, but Glrt never paid them any attention. Only one such petitioner realized the purpose of our visit. He was magically literate, if in a very basic way. He was lucky enough to see the ropes of gleaming wire rip through Glrt’s body and recognize it was a circuit breaking down. He didn’t see in enough detail to notice the circuit was three dimensional or the exact violence of the breakage, but he realized what was happening. He realized that his city was being used as a test subject for some ungodly magic. He fled, but few followed. He wasn’t well respected, nor was the might of advanced circuitry. Instead, the petitioners on the wall started hurling insults instead of demanding answers.
As Glrt neared the completion of her circuit, I swept through the city. No need to let what little knowledge they’d managed to accumulate go to waste. Following my regular pattern, the first step was consuming all the knowledge I could find. Glrt’s circuit wouldn’t leave much to be converted, so I didn’t bother making any slaves within the city. This allowed me to learn that their legacy was lacking in a number of ways since their ancestors had left the Conclave. They didn’t even remember why they left the Conclave city or why the wizard population was missing entirely. Instead, they were all cultivating their own body circuitry. The skill they had with controlling their own will was impressive, far better than the average cannibal city, but their circuitry was very sloppy. The vast majority were class one, impressive for a cannibal city, but they lacked anyone at class four. Even the lordly skull was lost. The wizards had been a guiding force, keeping the standards high. Without such consistency, the warriors of this city developed in extremely lopsided ways. Each personal legacy from a warrior was different, despite sharing almost identical systems. Their legacy being so fractured also meant a lot of recording, though, so I gained a lot by investigating all the different legacies.
Their refinement method may be lopsided and inconsistent, but the best legacies were better than anything the wizards had managed to develop. Excluding the lords, but those were based on something older than the Conclave. There was a definite bonus to developing a system you used yourself as opposed to applying the research of someone else to your own work. Yet another point against sharing the research between all my forces. The necromancers did have a point, though. Lacking will in all the circuitry my forces developed in the future was a very dangerous oversight. Giving my own forces a weakness was dangerous. Especially if it was a weakness I shared myself. The very tool that would be developed to fight my armies would be the one that was most effective in fighting me. A very dangerous result.
I added all the will runes I knew into the basic curriculum I taught every worshipper. I wouldn’t share the research across forces, but every force could develop in as balanced a way as they saw fit. There would be some sharing, as each rune discovered anywhere would be instantly learned everywhere. The abrupt addition shocked many, but provided the exact inspiration Glrt needed to finish developing her spell.
Mere minutes after I’d provided her with the runes necessary for will, her sixth class circuit bloomed around her form. The circuit was so massive that filling it with mana required several minutes of excruciating tension on Glrt’s behalf, but she felt nothing but elation as her brain’s crystalline structure was nearly softened to flesh by the time the circuit had finished.
As the circuit activated, her scream of jubilation made the defenders shiver. Worse was the pulse that echoed through the mana in the city, directly breaking all the circuitry below third class in the whole city that weren’t protected within bodies. As horror spread through the defenders, they realized they couldn’t move and their terror increased in intensity even further. The regular citizenry had barely managed to start feeling panic before the earth below their feet had crawled up their legs. Even if they’d have been able to break through the will-paralysis, they weren’t sinking into a softened earth. Hardened earth was crawling up their bodies.
The will-paralysis had worn off by the time the earth had covered everyone in direct contact with the ground to their necks. The screams then started to fill the city. The defenders, from their elevated positions, were entirely unharmed by the first phase of Glrt’s circuit. They heard the crying city and many directly turned around and left their positions. Their first step onto the earth surprised them, the formerly solid presence feeling so soft it was almost liquid as their feet were consumed by the ground. Only two had the desperation to tear flesh and leather as they forcefully removed their feet from their boots, escaping the hardened earth that reached their ankles before they’d thought to react. Freed from the earth or not, they could do nothing as the crying city went silent.
None were ready for the final phase of the circuit, however. The core rune of this particular circuit was earthen cohesion. As Glrt dropped to her knees, finally exhausted beyond the point her body could support her against the weight of the sky, every statue crushed in on itself as the earthen shells tried to become whole once again. Everyone in the city below class three was crushed into pulp that erupted from fractures in their stone coffins while it would have taken a class four creature to survive. Nobody in the city was class four. The defenders on the wall were forced to watch as their compatriots limbs, as most of them hadn’t been under the influence of the earth long enough to cover their entire body, blast into their own bodies as crushed viscera. Satisfied with this result, I picked up the remainder and brought them to Glrt to become worshippers. Her progress was astonishing. Unsurprisingly, the remaining soldiers were in too much shock to resist.
As the army marched forward and claimed the city as a camp for the day, they were the only ones to react with horror instead of awe at the sight of the pillars being slowly reclaimed into the earth. They looked from the pillars to the gruesome remains of who they’d encased and back again in mute horror. A few had thought to look for their families in the city after becoming worshippers. After seeing the first few pillars, they decided they were better off not seeing what their families had become and looked for the houses of people they hated to spend however long Glrt decided to rest in the city.
